


Pushing Daisies

by notmeagain



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pushing Daisies AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 15:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9908927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notmeagain/pseuds/notmeagain
Summary: Nico uses his uncanny ability to bring people back to life to solve murders with Reyna, a private investigator. They have a good, clean, and simple business going up until an unexpected case comes through their door that changes everything.Based on the TV show Pushing Daisies





	

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr but edited a little. hope you like it!

Nico di Angelo, a quiet man who works at a small book shop who sometimes works for Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano, the best private investigator in town.

 

It is important to note that Nico does not have special investigative skills or any other skills save for one unique, special, and completely unexplained ability to bring people back from the dead.

 

Solving murder cases were so much easier when you can ask the murdered who killed them.

But -- as always when it comes to these things-- there are rules.

One touch alive.

Another and they’re dead forever.

Keep them alive for more than a minute and someone else has to die (usually, someone within the vicinity, a 100 metre range, Nico has checked).

 

So, it goes. Nico brings the dead back for one minute, sixty seconds, then he touches them again.

 

Cut. Clean. Simple.

 

Up until Nico was reintroduced to his childhood love.

 

Will Solace.

Will Solace. 26. Tall. Blond. Blue Eyed. Athletic. Murdered.

 

Nico heard about it first in the news of the death of his childhood love while he was watching the nightly news.

 

Needless to say Nico was slightly devastated. But Nico wanted to bury that emotion with the rest of the others, deep and well hidden. Only casually acknowledging it, as if in passing, and then ignoring it.  Forever. He planned to leave it at that and live a well and un-feeling life when Reyna decided to pop-in, unannounced as usual, and hand him a case that would change his life (and by extension hers and a bunch of others as well).

 

“Hello, Reyna,” Nico greeted from the cash register not looking up from his book.

“I have a case,” Reyna said in lieu of a greeting.

“You don’t say,” Nico marked his book and put it down.

 

The conversation on their way to the funeral parlour went like so:

“Read the file,” Reyna said.

Nico read the file and was rudely surprised of who their new victim was.

“You know him?” she noticed.

“Sort of,” he kept his reply curt.

 

He told her his very minimal affiliation with their new victim. Once they got to their destination he requested to have a few moments alone while he spoke to the dead.

 

She obliged though very cautiously with copious amounts of suspicion as though Nico was hiding something from her.

He was.

 

His didn’t tell her the true nature of his relationship with the recently deceased because it was far more intimate than he would have liked to divulge to her.

 

Which was probably what led Nico not sticking to the usual rules. 

 

He was alone in the viewing room where Will’s body was. He looked down at the open casket and assessed the deceased Will.

 

Will was wearing a dark suit, navy maybe, it would have matched his eyes if they were open. His hair was kept tidy. His expression serene.

 

Nico pressed his timer. It counted down from 60. One touch and Will opened his eyes, bright blue, startled, and undeniably alive.

“Where am I?” Will asked sitting up from his casket. Not an unusual question but he was unusually calm.

“Hi, Will. You’re dead. Someone killed you. Did you see who?” Nico replied going straight to the point.

 

_55 seconds._

 

“Nico?” Will looked at him. “I haven’t seen you since summer camp.”

“Yes. You’ve been murdered and I need to know if you know who did it.” Nico explained quickly though he felt his heart racing. Just his luck being reunited with his first love and he was dead.

Will looked at him for a moment. 

 

_53 seconds._

 

“Gee. I’m sorry but I don’t really know,” the man in the casket looked apologetically at him. 

“You don’t remember anything?” Nico pressed. 

He was the one murdered yet he looked sorry. Nico found that a little ironic.

 

_50 seconds._

 

“No, I’m sorry,” Will shrugged.

Nico stared.

Will stared back.

 

_45 seconds._

 

“Yeah. I don’t really know who this works. I’m new to the being brought back to life thing,” Will explained awkwardly. Nico smiled at that. He was a little happy to know that Will didn’t lose his sense of humor. Will to his credit smiled back. For a moment they just smiled at one another. They haven’t seen each other since Nico was 11 and a half and Will was 12, it should have felt weird, awkward. It should not have felt normal. He shouldn’t feel a mixture of happiness and sadness at the thought of getting to speak to Will for one last time.

 

_40 seconds._

 

Reyna banged at the door “Hurry it up!” she said urgently.

“Is my time up?”

“Uh, yeah kind of. Sorry.”

Will smiled at him sincerely and said “Well, thanks for stopping by.”

“You know you were my first-lo–, er, um,I had a huge cr-, Ah, I mean, You were my first kiss,” Nico suddenly blurted out.

Nico was not sure why he said it or why it came out in a fluster but if he had to guess it probably had something to do with that smile the other man gave him. He blamed it on nostalgia.

“You were mine too,” Will said.

 

_30 seconds._

 

There was another wave of that small happiness mixed with a kind of sadness that washed over Nico.

“So, you wanna be my last?” the recently deceased man suggested shyly. “If that isn’t too weird.”

 

_25 seconds._

 

“No,” Nico decided. “That wouldn’t be too weird.”

Will closed his eyes and Nico did too. Nico leaned his head slowly, his lips stopping a breath away from Will’s.

 

_20 seconds._

 

Nico tried. He really did but he couldn’t with the knowledge that one press of his lips. One touch would kill the other.

Again.

 

_15 seconds._

 

Will opened his eyes not moving away but whispering to the other. “You know if you don’t want to kiss me it’s fine.”

“I want to,” Nico said moving back from him. “It’s just that…”

Will quirked his head to the side in silent inquiry.

Nico had an idea. It was an impulsive and irrational and very very bad.

“Lie down and pretend to be dead,” Nico ordered. 

Will complied quickly.

“Easy enough,” Will said with humor in his tone lying back and crossing his arms like he was a mummy.

Nico gave him a smile that he could not see.

 

_10 seconds._

 

Nico exited the room quickly finding Reyna grabbing her and walking as fast as he could without running.

“What did he know?” Reyna said all business. “And why are we running?”

 

_8 seconds._

 

“He didn’t know anything,” he said ignoring her second question.

 

_7 seconds._

 

Reyna’s shot his a wide-eyed slightly disbelieving, slightly shocked, and slightly angry. “You didn’t,” she said to him moving faster away.

_5 seconds._

 

They were outside now.

Nico gave her a pitiful shrug. Reyna narrowed her eyes disapprovingly at Nico’s life choices then bolted to the car leaving him there.

 

Reyna Avilla Ramirez-Arillano was not going to be a replacement death.

 

“I’m sorry!” Nico called to her as she sped away.

 

_0 seconds._

 

 

Somewhere out there someone has dropped dead.

 

 

Nico went back to the room where Will’s casket was to find him just as he had left him.

“Will,” he called to get the other man’s attention.

Will opened his eyes looking up at him “So, what happens now?”

“I don’t know,” Nico answered honestly, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly.

Will grinned at him in return.

Nico di Angelo did not know what was going to happen next but what he did know was that Will’s life wasn’t the only that was revived today. As brown eyes looked back at amused blue ones, butterflies started to flutter within Nico.

 

Butterflies Nico was sure were dead and buried long ago.

 

Will could not have possibly known this and it was silly to think in the current situation but at that moment Nico has never felt so alive.

 

Funnily enough, so did Will.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm unsure if i should add more chapters or if people want to even find out who murdered Will or just keep this as is please comment and share your thoughts! Thanks for reading! pls tell ur friends if u like it! hit me up @ clarisselaruethless.tumblr.com


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